By Armando Fenequito
DAVAO CITY – The Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) has two new persons under investigation (PUIs) admitted at its Isolation Facility for possible affliction of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
This was confirmed by SPMC Chief of Clinics Dr. Ricardo Audan in phone interview with The Manila Bulletin on Wednesday afternoon.
Audan said the two patients were Filipinos who have travel history abroad. This was the reason why they had themselves checked when they started to show the symptoms of COVID-19.
However, he said, the two were referred to their facility on March 9, and their medical personnel immediately took throat swab tests from the patients, and sent these to Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM).
Audan said the patients were doing while still under observation inside the facility.
“For the record, we have already catered many PUI, maybe around 20 that we already discharged. This is not our first time that we handled PUI and none of them were tested positive,” he said.
He said the result was expected to be out by Friday, and they were hoping it will be negative for COVID-19 just like the previous 20 patients who were already discharged from their facility.